If you want to sell more products or services, get more subscribers on your mailing list, or generate leads for your website, you need a killer landing page.

What’s a landing page? Essentially, it’s a web page that has one highly specific purpose: to convert visitors.

Every page on your website has a purpose: your homepage introduces your business to people visiting your site, a “Product” or “Services” page informs users about what your business offers and blog articles educate visitors. A well-designed landing page is an effective marketing tool that can steer visitors to complete the desired action, be it signing up for your newsletter, buying a theme or plugin, or signing up for a free trial.

Ready to create a landing page to boost your marketing efforts? Read on to learn more about what landing pages are, tips for using them effectively, plus some great themes to get you started.

What is a landing page?

You’re probably landed on a landing page before and not even realized it, so let’s take a look at a clear example.

Notice how the homepage introduces Wistia as a fun video hosting services built for businesses.

When you click “Sign up” at the top of the page, here’s what you see:

Woah, where did the navigation go, right? Wistia’s Sign Up page assumes you’re ready to do one thing: sign up. The thinking here is that you’ve learned all you need to know about the video hosting service so there’s no need to educate you further. This page strips away any distractions, including navigation, so you can focus on signing up for a free account.

Did I say there were no distractions? I lie. There are scrolling testimonials to the right to further encourage you to complete this page’s desired goal: to sign up already and get your free account!

This is just one example of how to use a landing page. Let’s look at some more.

Great landing page examples you’ll want to copy

Want to get inspired? Check out the great landing page examples below.

I’m a big fan of Flywheel’s landing pages and take my hat off to the web host’s marketing team – their landing pages suck me in every time. On this landing page, the offer is a free ebook with a big, green “Download” button.

When you scroll down the page, there’s a cool parallax design that shows off each chapter in the ebook, finishing with some positive testimonials and another CTA nudging you to download the ebook.

The page is well-designed – it’s simple and friendly and removes any distractions that might take you away from handing over your phone number and download the ebook.

Airbnb is another great example of a persuasive landing page. Why does this page work?

It features a bright header image with friendly faces, creating a sense of trust.

The headline tells you that becoming a host will help you make money – and fund your passions.

The sub-heading reinforces the sense of trust the page elicits, telling you that when you become a host you’ll be joining a community that helps people.

The three examples of ways to host with Airbnb lists the different advantages of becoming a host.

Overall this page is simple and answers common concerns for potential hosts, steering visitors to click on one of three CTAs: “List your space”, “Become a co-host”, or “Create an experience”.

Tips for creating landing pages that convert

There’s no point driving traffic to your landing page if it doesn’t convert, so here are 10 tips to help you get started.

Use a headline that clearly states your offer. Your visitors want to know what they’re getting in exchange for their email or credit card information, so clearly tell them what they’re getting with a brief headline.

Clearly state the benefits. When visitors fill out your form, what do they get in return? Make sure you explicitly state the benefits of what you’re offering because your visitors will be wondering “what’s in it for me?”. Visitors should be able to understand your value proposition at first glance.

Use engaging button text. Now’s not the time to be boring. Forget using generic text like “submit” or “send” on your contact or submission form. Be specific and use words like “download”, “sign up” or even “give it to me!”.

Keep your form short. If you’re using a form to collect information, keep it short and don’t ask for too many details. You don’t want to overwhelm your visitors. All you really need is to ask for their name and email. You can always follow up later to gather more information if necessary.

Think about design. Consider the layout of your page, colors, CTAs and any other elements you want to include on your landing page.

Include social proof. Remember how Wistia displays testimonials on its “sign up” page? Yes, that’s social proof and it’s a powerful way to elicit trust and credibility. So if you have happy customers or clients and have awesome testimonials, use them!

Make it mobile-friendly. Consider creating a separate landing page especially for mobile users that is even more minimal and easy to read on smaller devices. With more and more people accessing the internet on mobile devices, you could be losing out on potential customers or clients if you don’t cater to people using devices other than desktops.

Create a “Thank You” page. You’ll want to thank your visitors for taking the time to fill out your form. Now that you’ve captured their information, you can redirect the user to your website, re-introduce your navigation, and encourage them to further explore your website.

Testing your landing page. Last, but not least, always test your landing page. A/B testing can help you determine which elements are working well on your landing page and what could be improved.

Bonus: Get inspired with these landing page themes

Landkit features a variety of different landing page designs aimed at all kinds of purposes, including lead generation, ebooks and whitepapers, webinar registration, free trials, product launches and crowdfunding. It uses the Hybrid Composer page builder so you can carefully craft the look and feel of your landing page without touching a line of code. There’s also one-click demo install so you can get up and running in minutes.

Designed to convert, Inbound is a well-designed landing page theme that includes all the building blocks you need to sell anything from ebooks to email newsletters. This theme is fully customizable with a built-in page builder, a unique banner system, unlimited color and layout options and integration with popular plugins including WooCommerce and MailChimp.

Looking for a theme to promote a digital product? With its modern design, this theme is ideal for generating hype ahead of a product launch. One features Visual Composer compatibility, MailChimp integration, custom shortcodes, AJAX animations and one-click demo installation.

Create your own powerful landing page

Landing pages provide an effective and highly targeted way of converting visitors to your site. So next time you have a new product or service you want to launch, or if you just want to capture emails and generate leads, consider setting up a landing page on your site.

Don’t forget to check out our theme marketplace for landing page themes and our plugin marketplace for more tools to help you create the perfect landing page for your website.

About the Author Jenni McKinnon

A copywriter, copy editor, web developer, consultant, course instructor and founder of WP Pros(e), Jenni McKinnon has spent the past 15 years developing websites and almost as long for WordPress. A self-described WordPress nerd, she enjoys watching The Simpsons and names her test sites after references from the show.
View all posts by Jenni McKinnon